BIRTHDAY PANEL
5:30 PM | Florian Helgath in conversation with Frieder Bernius, Norbert Lammert, and others
7:00 PM | Concert
Doors open at 5:00 PM | Tickets are valid for both the birthday panel and the concert
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A year of jubilation, especially in these times: 25 years ago - on February 6, 2000 - CHORWERK RUHR gave its debut concert. From the founding idea of creating an ensemble in which the aesthetic potential of the Ruhr area is condensed - initially under the direction of Frieder Bernius, shaped by Florian Helgath since 2011 - a choir has developed that is among the most renowned chamber choirs in the country. A choir that raises its level higher and higher year after year: The auditory experiences with CHORWERK RUHR are captivating, the concerts in the Christuskirche have become their home game, now the anniversary concert.
Beforehand, the chief conductor invites you to a birthday panel, together with
Frieder Bernius, founding conductor of the choir
Prof. Dr. Norbert Lammert, the long-standing President of the Bundestag, has been closely connected to both the choir and the Christuskirche for years
and other guests (information to follow)
Florian Helgath will reflect on 25 years of CHORWERK RUHR and question what influence a single choir could have on the development of the Ruhr area. And what it could or should take from now on. At a time when so much is at stake, the socio- and high culture, the civil and the alternative culture, the ecclesiastical and the working-class culture, the democratic and European culture. Peace, freedom, the beauty of both.
CHORWERK RUHR celebrates its anniversary at the place of the European promise.
The subsequent concert program:
FELIX MENDELSSOHN | 1809-1847
Three Psalms Op. 78 for mixed choir a cappella
KURT HESSENBERG | 1908-1994
Oh Lord, make me an instrument of your peace Op. 37/1 (1946)
Motet for 6-part mixed choir a cappella
FRANCIS POULENC | 1899-1963
Figure humaine Cantata for 12-part mixed double choir a cappella
Chorwerk Ruhr
Florian Helgath, Conductor
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80 years since the end of a war we call the second, Europe lay in ruins. A human lifetime later, war is raging again in Europe, what does "In Peace" mean in the midst of war? If not remembrance? Of the moments in history when peace was more than a halt of arms. Chorwerk Ruhr seeks the memory in the history of music. Everyone who listens to the news knows how war sounds; how does peace sound?
As Felix Mendelssohn has set the Psalms to music, this is the first answer the choir provides. Mendelssohn himself said of his composition a "listening into one's own inner self," whose language is that of an inner dialogue, as carried on by people living with themselves. No retreat, a return to self.
To be able to take in the world, to learn to love it, to shape it. "Oh Lord, make me an instrument of your peace," the prayer is attributed to Francis of Assisi, expressing a longing from the 13th century. Kurt Hessenberg set it to music in 1946, when Europe had become a graveyard. A return to self for Hessenberg as well, who had joined the Nazi party late - in 1942 - and was counted among the "God-gifted" by the Nazis in the summer of 1944. The paths that lead out of terror and war are long. Blessed by false gods, the work in which Hessenberg converts to your peace stands at the start of his turnaround into democracy (and was premiered, incidentally, in Essen-Werden).
And then, a third memory by Chorwerk Ruhr, the famous cantata "Figure humaine" by Francis Poulenc, written during the time when France suffered under Nazi occupation. The 12-part cantata is overwhelming, setting to music a poem by Paul Éluard, written in 1942 and immediately banned by the Nazis - Éluard lists moments and things that are as near as awaiting lips and as far as the echo of my childhood, that are sad like the steps of death and happy like the wonders of the nights, that are as ordinary as the wings of birds and unique as every outstretched hand, and on all these moments, the fullness of life, he writes your name - Liberté. Freedom. The work, influenced by jazz harmonics but always tonal, culminates in a chord spread over four octaves, demanding a high C from the first sopranos. Poulenc has worked towards this final cry; his Figure humaine sings, against the ongoing howls of war, freedom into the world... No peace without it.
Poulenc's vocal music has become the epitome of a cappella art of the 20th century, and now? In the 21st century? In which war has been raging in Europe for more than three years? Now a concert, as only Chorwerk Ruhr can compose it. An anniversary concert - "25 Years Chorwerk Ruhr" - but no fanfares and fireworks at the princely court. Although this choir would have every reason to celebrate princely, it is among the best choirs in the country. Precisely because it is so present, biased, demanding.
And inviting: The path that Chorwerk Ruhr sings can go 'In Peace' and write your name, for those accustomed to living with themselves and, to paraphrase Hannah Arendt, the political philosopher, engage in that quiet dialogue between me and myself, which we call listening, a thinking listening.
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
